海洋生物的十大神奇之處(1)
As most people know, about 70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered in water. All said and done, there's about 1.3 billion cubic kilometers (332.5 million cubic miles) of water on the planet, and the seas and rivers and oceans that hold all that water are still some of the most poorly understood regions on Earth—and so are the creatures that live in them.
衆所周知，地球表面70%都被水體覆蓋。總而觀之，地球上的水約有13億立方千米（33250萬立方英里），然而人們對盛着這些水的江河海洋卻仍知之甚少——對生活在其中的生物也一樣。ssal Squid Digest Food With Their Brains
10.巨型烏賊用大腦消化食物
The colossal squid, or Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, was believed to be a myth until recently, and we've still only seen a handful in real life. In 2007, the largest specimen yet was found and captured by a crew of New Zealand fishermen in the Ross Sea near Antarctica. It was massive—a full 10 meters (33 ft) long and almost 450 kilograms (1,000 lbs) in weight. The squid was hauled back to New Zealand to be studied, and they found something pretty incredible: Its digestive system runs right through the center of its brain.
巨型烏賊，即“大王酸漿烏賊”（Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni），在世人眼中一直是個謎，直到最近才解開；然而我們實際上仍只看見寥寥可數的幾隻。2007年，最大的一隻烏賊在南極洲附近的羅斯海出現，被幾個新西蘭漁民捉住。它體型巨大——整整10米（33英尺）長，幾乎有450公斤（1000英鎊）重。這隻烏賊被運回新西蘭進行研究，人們發現了一些不可思議的東西：它的消化系統貫通了大腦。
The brain is built like a doughnut—a ring of fleshy mass with a hole right in the middle. When the colossal squid swallows its prey, the esophagus carries it through the brain, which pulls nutrients directly from the food before it reaches its stomach. Gigantic squid like this inhabit the frigid waters of the deep ocean, and between the cold and their ridiculously slow metabolisms, they don't actually need much food to survive. In fact, the half-ton animal only needs 30 grams of food per day to survive. That's about what a single AA battery weighs.
它的大腦結構就像甜甜圈——一圈大腦組織，正中間一個洞。當巨型烏賊吞嚥獵物時，食道把食物送到大腦，大腦從中直接吸收營養物質，然後食物才進入胃裏。像這樣巨大的烏賊住在深海冰冷的水中，在寒冷和極其緩慢的新陳代謝之間，它們實際不需要太多食物就能活下去。事實上，這種重達半噸的動物每天只需要30克（1盎司）食物。那大約就是一節5號電池的重量。nha-Proof Fish Armor
9.防禦水虎魚的鎧甲
Piranhas, the razor-toothed terrors of the Amazon River, have few natural predators and an almost endless buffet of potential prey. Although a single piranha might make a nice meal for a dolphin or a cormorant, their tendency to swim in schools of hundreds keeps most predators at bay, so piranhas live a largely lawless life. As a result, other Amazonian fish have had to adapt to their bullying neighbors, and even the largest fish in the Amazon—the Arapaima gigas or giant arapaima—needs a second layer of protection.
水虎魚是亞馬遜河裏長着尖牙的恐怖分子。它們的天敵屈指可數，獵物倒是很多，幾乎有吃不完的大餐。雖然單個水虎魚可能成爲海豚或鸕鶿口中的美餐，但是它們喜歡幾百條一起成羣結隊出現的習性讓大部分敵人敬而遠之，因此，水虎魚幾乎過着無法無天的生活。最終，亞馬遜河的其他魚兒不得不適應這些粗暴的鄰居，甚至亞馬遜河裏最大的魚——巨骨舌魚（Arapaima gigas）——都需要兩層防護。Giant arapaima are massive fish, weighing close to 130 kilograms (300 lbs) at adulthood. But as Teddy Roosevelt observed, a school of piranhas won't shy away from size alone, so the giant arapaima evolved armor to withstand the bites. Their scales are built in two layers—the outer layer is a hard, mineralized surface shell, and the inner layer is softer with intricate collagen structures built like rotating stairways. When a piranha's tooth clamps against the outer shell, the stairway structures bend and rotate to absorb the force without breaking. It's like punching a pillow rather than a pane of glass—the pillow bounces back into shape.
巨骨舌魚是巨型魚，成年時的體重近130公斤（300英鎊）。但是據泰迪·羅斯福觀察，水虎魚羣不會被體型嚇倒，所以巨骨舌魚爲抵擋齧咬而進化出了一副盔甲。它們的鱗有兩層——外層堅硬，是石化的外殼；裏層柔軟，裏面的骨膠原結構像旋轉樓梯那樣錯綜複雜。當水虎魚牙齒鉗住外面的殼時，樓梯似的結構就會彎曲、旋轉，將撞擊力吸收而且不會破損。就像一拳打在枕頭而非玻璃窗上——枕頭彈回了原型。sible Warfare
8.看不見的戰爭
The most abundant lifeform in the ocean is one you'll never see—a family of bacteria collectively known as SAR11. They live in all the world's oceans from the arctic to the tropics, and they're incredibly efficient at their job—converting dissolved carbon into CO2. The most abundant predator in the ocean also exists at the microscopic level—a closely related group of viruses called pelagiphages. And they're waging holy war on the SAR11 bacteria.
你永遠看不到海洋裏最豐富的生命形式——一個總稱爲SAR11的細菌科生物。它們遍佈世界各大洋，從北極到迴歸線；它們的工作效率極高——將溶解的碳轉換爲二氧化碳。海洋生物面對着各種殺手，其中對手最多的也是用顯微鏡纔看得見的生物——一個與病毒密切相關的羣體，叫做“pelagiphages”。它們對SAR11細菌發動了聖戰。What's happening is a fiercely competitive evolutionary arms race. Twenty-three years ago, in 1990, the SAR11 bacteria were observed for the first time, and they weren't given a lot of attention. They don't do much; there just happen to be a lot of them. But earlier this year, a routine test of the water off the coast of Oregon found a mass of dead SAR11 cells. Swimming in the same water were the previously unknown pelagiphage viruses, and the researchers watched as the viruses murdered the remaining bacteria cells in front of their eyes.
這是一場進化上激烈的軍備競賽。23年以前，1990年SAR11細菌被首次發現，備受關注。它們沒有什麼特別，只是數量龐大。但是今年初，對俄勒岡沿岸水體的一項常規檢測發現了大量死亡的SAR11細胞。人們不知道這片水裏有這種病毒。研究人員眼睜睜地看着病毒殺死剩餘細菌細胞。But the SAR11 are so adept at sharing genetic information that they've managed to stay one step ahead of the pelagiphages, constantly evolving to fight them off. And the viruses aren't far behind. There's already a completely new subfamily of pelagiphage viruses, evolved to prey on the more evolved SAR11 cultures. It's a microscopic war unfolding right in front of us.
但是SAR11擅長分享遺傳信息，它們能比這些病毒快一步，不斷以進化挫敗對方。而病毒落後並不多。它們已經有了一個完整的新的亞科——這就是爲捕殺更高級的SAR11生物所做的進化。這場微生物戰爭正在我們面前興起。翻譯：羅惠月 來源：前十網
